Using Virtual World in Education: The case of Second Life .

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Master’s Thesis in Informatics

Using Virtual World in Education: The case

of Second Life

Author: Viri Appaneni, Yenus Likisa Supervisor: Osama Mansour Semester: Spring 2011 Course code: 4IK00E

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Abstract

With technology being advanced and many new teaching methods being implemented, considering virtual worlds for teaching is quite innovative and interesting. A virtual environment is an artificially constructed representation of a natural or imagined environment. Virtual worlds consist of enactment for terrains, avatars, objects, textures, and other forms of digital assets. Many virtual worlds like Alpha World, Delta 3D, Second Life etc. are available today. An avatar can be defined as a computer user’s representation of him/her-self within the virtual environment.

Today, educational institutes have been using virtual worlds in various fields like designing user interfaces, nursing courses, cooperate training, leadership training programmes. But certain aspects need to be examined thoroughly like how virtual spaces are influencing education, how students and teachers understand learning in virtual worlds while interacting through avatars where communication lacks body language and is limited to seeing, hearing and talking. Our study was conducted on a single course called Business Talking offered in Second Life by Linnaeus University. This course mainly emphasizes on technical and administrative presentations in English.

The main purpose of our study is to investigate how students and teachers understand learning in such environments and identifying the factors which are related to this. Relating to the purpose the research question “How do students and teachers perceive learning through avatar-based interaction in virtual world environments? ” was investigated.

Pedagogy and general theories like constructivism, cognition, virtual world, synchronous versus asynchronous e-learning were used in our study.

A qualitative interpretative case study was conducted. Data was collected through observations and interviews. All the sessions of the course were observed and interviews were made with five students and one teacher of the course.

The main results include students perceive more through avatar education as they get a sense of real feeling when compared to other online education systems. Also, performing activities in different places of SL such as camp fire, near waterfalls, different cultural places etc. made them perceive well as they feel relaxed and less pressure. Second Life's environment helps to simulate real conditions and situations which help them to perceive more. But factors like usability of avatars, technical problems and getting adapted to the environment play an unfavourable role in perceiving learning. Both the teachers and students have to be constructive and good pedagogical decisions have to be made when a problem arises. Another main result was that, lack of body language does effect in perceiving learning.

Keywords: Virtual Worlds, e-learning in language, Second Life, Education. ii

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Acknowledgements

This paper would not have been possible without the support and guidance of many people.

We would like to sincerely thank our tutor Mr. Osama Mansour for his guidance and assistance throughout the course of this paper.

A special gratitude to Dr. Päivi Jokela for her constant encouragement and support which motivated us in many ways.

We also express our sincere thanks to Prof. Anita Mirijamdotter for her support and insight during our thesis. We are also thankful to Dr. Jan Aidemark for his guidance and support through out the course which supported us to complete this Masters program successfully.

We are also dedicated to the other groups in our tutoring sessions for their constructive feedback.

Moreover, we would like to show our gratefulness to the teacher and students, whom we interviewed and thank them for their support and co-operation. A special thanks to Mr. David Richardson for his helping and cooperating nature.

Our deep gratitude goes to our family and friends, especially Alexander Mücksch and Nasser Musa for their inspiration, encouragement and support throughout our study.

Yours Sincerely

Viri Appaneni And Yenus Likisa.

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List of Tables

Table 1- Advantages and disadvantages of educational activities in Second Life (Baker, Wentz and Woods, 2009).

Table 2 - Learning Activities and learning Spaces in Second Life (Minocha, 2010).

Table 3 - Social and Cognitive Constructivism (Cobb, 1994). Table 4 - Characteristics of the Participants.

Table 5 - Details of sessions observed. Table 6 - Observation Protocol for Students. Table 7 - Observation Protocol for Students.

Table 8 - Summary of student participants views on Second Life Theme Table 9 - Summary of student participants views on Constructivism Theme. Table 10 - Summary of student participants views on Cognition Theme Table 11 - Summary of student participants views on Synchronous and Asynchronous Theme.

Table 12 - Summary of student participants views on General Theme. Table 13 - Summary of teacher's reply to the interview protocol.

List of Figures

Figure 1- Direct contact in a traditional classroom

Figure 2- Virtual World as a filter between teacher and students Figure 3- Learning and Remembering Meaningful Information – A Cognitive Model (Grow, 1996)

Figure 4- Kickoff meeting held at the welcome area

Figure 5- A lecture at Peer Gynt Rotunda in virtual setting and informal discussion around a camp fire

Appendices

Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Appendix 3 v

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1 Introduction

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This section is an introduction to our research. Here we discussed the motivation, research problem, purpose and research question.

_____________________________________________________________ Education system has undergone many changes in the past few decades. From the traditional classroom teaching to distance learning; e-learning to teaching in virtual worlds, improving the educational standards has always been the primary goal. With high technological advances, teachers today should be capable of creating digital learning environments and designing online activities in cooperation with other teachers (Retalis, Papasalouros, Avgeriou and Siassiakos, 2004).

A virtual environment can be defined as an artificially constructed representation of a natural or imagined environment (Biocca and Levy, 1995; Blascovich, et al., 2002 and Lanier, 2001). Zhu, Wang and Jia (2007) defined virtual world as a “computer-simulated persistent environment similar to the real world”. It is usually created for its users to inhabit and interact through avatars. An avatar can be defined as a computer user’s representation of him/her-self within the virtual environment (Second Life, 2007). Today, we can find many virtual world platforms like Active Worlds, War of World Crafts, Twinity, Kaneva, Smallworlds etc of which Second Life is the most popular one. According to Chang, Gütl, Kopeinik, Williams (2009), it was estimated that by 2011, 80% of active Internet users

will have an “avatar” in some form of virtual world environment.

Virtual worlds are being used by many educational institutions, organizations, medical academies for educational, business, marketing purposes. Companies like Apple, Sony Ericsson, Toyota, and Adidas have moved into Second Life. Adidas even sell some of their clothes and shoes through Second Life and Toyota uses Second Life as a showroom for some of their cars (Rymaszewski, et al., 2007). IBM also built a virtual campus on Second Life. They discovered that such platforms can be used for business-oriented round table discussion. They also believe that they can extend relationship building on an existing IBM partnership (IBM, 2010). Sony Ericsson entered Second Life to make an awareness of their product innovations in detail. Specially trained promoter Avatars are even there to answer and help us if we have questions (Sony Ericsson, 2007). Boulos, Hetherington and Wheeler (2007) discussing from medical perspective cited that these virtual worlds can be used to educate people about diseases, to promote public health, to provide first aid education.

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Nesson and Nesson (2008) state that there may be some risks also involved in using such virtual worlds. Taking into consideration about Second Life platform they explain that it may involve risks to invest time, effort and money as Linden labs, creators of Second Life may change their administration and plans. Security, privacy should also be considered and analyzed deeply.

In virtual worlds, representations of any space like a university, work space, city can be replicated with objects like buildings, gardens, bridges, trees, flowers, cars etc. Any person can take up a virtual human form called Avatar. Avatars have an option to change their appearance, fly or move around in Second Life, create objects, visiting virtual spaces, and interact with each other through chat or by speaking through headphones.

Implemented these type of technologies in education may have its own set of influence on the students and teachers. Here in our present study we would like to explore and find how students and teachers perceive learning in virtual environments, by observing them while they are interacting /collaborating through avatars. Throughout our study we made observations (as participant observer) in its actual setting and conduct interviews with our participants (teacher, students).

1.1 Related Studies

Today, many teachers, researchers and corporations are recognizing that these 3D online spaces act as a legitimate communication media and they make the working environment fun and also help in decreasing the differences between reality and virtuality (Schultze, et al., 2008). In recent years, universities have conducted experiments with the use of virtual 3D worlds for teaching and learning. Virtual 3D worlds are no longer just for the stereotypical geek (Chang, Gütl, Kopeinik, Williams, 2009).

Kluge and Riley (2008) discussed the significances and challenges of virtual worlds. Some of the advantages are, it is possible to emphasize more on students rather than on teachers, saving time and travelling costs, accessibility, active participation. But it also has many problems like hardware problems, creating classes, cost involved in creating a suitable environment etc. Virtual worlds have also been questioned for virtual violence, virtual assault, and sexual harassment. Baker, Wentz and Woods (2009) discussed some advantages and disadvantages of education in Second Life which are described in Table 1.

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Table 1: Advantages and disadvantages of educational activities in Second Life (Baker, Wentz and Woods, 2009)

Advantages

Disadvantages

1. Has multiple potentials. 2. Ability to engage students in

interactions with teachers. 3. Build a sense of community. 4. Students are exposed to new

technology.

5. A person feeling shy may be more open.

6. Teachers and students can do many other activities like attending games, museum, concerts etc.

1. Takes time.

2. Technology Issues. 3. Some students may not

enjoy it.

4. Class management techniques.

5. Security.

Discussing student’s role in virtual worlds, Kluge and Riley (2008) discussed that some students may find the virtual worlds so engaging that they get easily distracted from the course goals. There is a possibility that they may lack participation and may behave inappropriately towards others. Baker, Wentz and Woods (2009) suggested some recommendations to the students and teachers in Second Life like “do not send students in to Second Life without some educational objective, be prepared for the unexpected and have a contingency plan, prepare students for the social experience, start small, send students in with a partner, make students your learning partners, spend time in Second Life yourself, connect with other users of Second Life, assess the efficacy of Second Life”.

Many new developments are being made in educational field of virtual learning. Smoodle being the latest upgrade. It can be referred to as open source software where Moodle, a learning management system is implemented in Second Life (Kluge and Riley, 2008).

1.2 Motivation and Research Problem

Usage of virtual worlds in educational purposes is increasing (Stieglitz, Lattemann and Fohr, 2010; Callaghan, et al., 2010; Cliburn and Gross, 2009) and can be considered a new phenomenon. Many educational

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institutions ranging from community colleges to large universities are offering virtual learning courses (Kluge and Riley, 2008). So far, studies conducted on virtual worlds were mostly case studies on how courses were conducted in Second Life (Callaghan, et al., 2010; Aydogan, Karaka and Aras, 2010) or about the experiences of the teachers and students. However, “more basic research is needed to investigate how virtual spaces are influencing what we imagine education itself will become" (Jarmon, 2009, p.7). This uncertainty has created the basic motivation for this study.

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Figure 1: Direct contact in a traditional classroom

Figure 2: Virtual World as a filter between teacher and students

Virtual worlds for pedagogical situation are trying to combine avatar-based interaction without losing the benefits of education (Andersen, Hristov and

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Karimi, 2008). Avatars are not the student's real body, thus the interaction is limited to seeing and listening compared to real life interaction. He or she only sees a motionless group of avatars. Studies showed that non verbal communication is moderately supported in Second Life and learners would like to have more non-verbal cues to be added (Vrellis, et al., 2010). As you can see in the above pictures, the virtual world inhibits the communication between the teacher and students because there is no direct contact. Thus, body language is lost in Second Life classes (Rive, Billinghurst, Thomassen, Lyons, 2008), which is however an important factor in human communication (Dumbravă and Koronka, 2009), therefore influences on the learning have to be expected.

Universities, who are considering using Second Life for courses, need to have a strong research backbone about the impacts of 3D Worlds on perceiving learning as various reasons like avatar based collaboration, general features of Second Life may affect the learning. Though some research was done, the published articles on Second Life may become outdated as this technology is constantly adapting, changing and evolving (Woods, 2010).

1.3 Purpose

As mentioned in the last paragraph, new technologies are emerging and are being used widely by educational institutions. However, even if these new technologies brought a lot of opportunities, they will also influence the users and provide opportunities and challenges (Kluge and Riley, 2008) which may or may not be encouraging in perceiving learning. The main purpose of this study is to examine students and teachers perceptions/ understandings, when learning through avatars in 3D environments from their own perspective.

1.4 Research Questions

So relating to the purpose of this study we would like to investigate the following research questions.

(1) How do students and teachers perceive learning through avatar-based interaction in virtual world environments?

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2 Background/Theory

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This section represents the theories evolving from the literature study regarding virtual worlds in educational context and pedagogy related topics. The aim of this section is to provide descriptive knowledge that will enable a deeper understanding of the empirical findings.

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2.1 Virtual World

Virtual worlds are defined as three-dimensional simulations in which avatars can move around and interact with each other by means of integrated text, audio, video and chat tools (Dickey, 2005). Bell (2008) defines a virtual world as “a synchronous, persistent network of people,

represented as avatars, facilitated by networked computers.” Moreover,

Book (2004) defined virtual world as an immersive, interactive, continual multi-user share space that provides its users the experience of immediate real-time interaction. This can be done for various purposes like socialization, communications, businesses, education, and entertainment, by using their virtual representatives or avatars (Book, 2004). Zhou, et al. (2011) claims that, because of its 3D nature, virtual worlds have acquired an aspect of immersion which gives interactive and immersive experiences that engage its users. They also stated that user’s motivation in using virtual worlds is quite impressive when compared to other worlds like 2D.

Virtual world exists in different forms for various purposes such as social networking, gaming, business institutions, education, research etc. Currently different kinds of virtual world platforms are emerging, such as Second Life, Active Worlds, There, Adobe Atmosphere, OpenSim, Everquest, World of Warcraft, etc and each of these platforms has their own affordances and limitations depending on the context of their use.

Childress and Braswell (2006) demonstrate how virtual worlds engage online students in an environment which allows them to become more involved with each other and the teacher. Sitting around a coffee table in a cyber cafe and conversing in real time with other avatars by making use of generated emotions and specific forced gestures, they have observed social interaction was improved and concluded that, the graphical support of virtual worlds, Second Life in particular, adds a visual feedback element that increases the interaction while exchanging knowledge. These highly social features of virtual worlds make them appropriate environments for cooperative learning activities. Moreover, offering a variety of partner and group activities, they promote critical thinking and problem solving skills of

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learners, which indicates cognitive presence in an online learning community (Rourke, Garrison, Anderson and Archer, 1999).

Dillenbourg, et al. (2002), identified that the basic characteristics of virtual environments draw attention to the motivational explicit representations that produce positive attitudes toward the educational environment. In addition they said that learners are not only active, but also actors as it is possible for learners to create objects; therefore, they can be a part of the design process of their own learning environment by becoming “the contributors of the social and information space”. Some characteristics of virtual learning environments are:-

• A virtual learning environment is a designed information space. • A virtual learning environment can be referred as a social space:

Here educational interactions occur in the environment, turning spaces into places.

• The virtual space is explicitly presented: the representation of this information/social space can vary from text to 3D immersive worlds.

• Students are not only active, but also actors: they co-construct the virtual space.

• Virtual learning environments are not confined to distance education: they also enrich classroom activities.

• Virtual learning environments combine heterogeneous technologies and several pedagogical approaches.

• Most of the virtual environments coincide with physical environments.

2.1.1 Second Life

Second Life is a virtual world developed by Linden Labs and was launched on June 23, 2003 to be accessible on the Internet. It’s a free client program which enables users to interact with each other through avatars (Second Life, 2007). Second Life comprises of 3D representations of inhabitant’s and landscapes from the real world. It's an environment where users represent themselves in some form i.e. avatar and they cooperate or communicate with each other by using different methods like instant messaging, chat, voice. Also, inhabitants in Second Life can design their clothing, hair colour, dresses and even can change their appearance etc. through their avatars (Sah and Kanunjna, 2008).

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Second Life has created many opportunities for educational institutions. Today, Harvard University, University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Public Health CADE, University of Missouri, Linnaeus University and many more are conducting classes, training programs and workshops in Second Life for students from different parts of the world removing the geographical barriers. As Peachey (2007) stated that Second Life has turned out to be a visually dynamic, stimulating and collaborative environment and as a result they are attracting most of teachers throughout the world (Peachey, 2007).

Education in Second Life is more practical rather than theory, which helps students to practice the lessons they have learned, especially helps them to explore or practice situations which may be hard in the real world class. It also makes them think innovatively. This way of teaching in Second Life is a combination of theory and practice together with uniqueness of the environment (Rive, Billinghurst, Thomassen and Lyons, 2008).

A study by Warburton and Perez-Garcia (2009) identifies the below components of Second Life which facilitate creativity and innovations in academia.

• Extended/rich interactions: chances for higher social interaction between individuals, communities, individual with object/artifact interaction.

• Visualization and contextualization: the fabrication and replica of content that is difficult to get, like historically lost objects/events, too distant (archeological places), too costly (Space), futuristic or impossible to see by the human eye.

• Exposure to valid content and culture. • Individual and collective identity play.

• Immersion in Second Life, a feeling of sense of presence through virtual embodiment in the form of an avatar and wide-ranging modes of communication, which can influence the affective, empathic and motivational aspects of the experience.

• Simulation: replica of contexts that can be too costly to reproduce in real life with the advantages such as overcoming some physical constraints etc.

• Community presence: “promoting a sense of belonging and purpose that coheres around groups, subcultures and geography.”(Warburton, 2009).

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• Content production: opportunities for making and possession of the learning environment and objects within it that are both individual and owned (Warburton, 2009).

Teachers can encourage many learning activities in various learning spaces which helps the students to perceive more. Minocha (2010) describes some activities which can be done in various parts of Second Life.

Table 2: Learning Activities and learning Spaces in Second Life (Minocha ,2010)

Learning activity Learning Space

1. Lectures, guest speakers • Lecture theatres (indoors); amphitheatre (outdoors) 2. Seminars or small group

discussions • Formal or informal areas e.g. Formal chairs and tables. 3. Teaching design skills • Sandboxes (Open Spaces)

4. Virtual field trips • Meeting point somewhere in Second Life(mostly at the host institution's island) and thereafter visits to topic related islands.

5. Instructor led, skills based training (negotiation, decision making, communication)

• Simulations of learning spaces to match with the stories.

Describing one disadvantage of Second Life Rive, Billinghurst, Thomassen and Lyons (2008) says that non-verbal communication in Second Life is limited and expressions have to be replicated forcefully by clicking on certain scripted objects. They also say that “all of this behaviour surpasses the thin communication channel afforded by text only; however, it lacks the subtlety, and spontaneity of a face-to-face exchange and is a technical limitation with Second Life”.

2.2 Constructivism

Constructivism is the leading theory in academia which has its roots in philosophy, psychology and other disciplines and its goal is to explain how learners are able to know the world (Glasersfeld, 1989). Sener (1997)

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defined the notion of constructivism as: “…an educational philosophy which holds learners to ultimately construct their own knowledge that then resides within them, so that each person's knowledge is as unique as they are.”

According to Mayer's constructivist theory, knowledge is something being dynamically fabricated by humans and knowing is an adaptive practice that organizes the human’s experiential world (Mayer, 1992). Karagiorgi and Symeou (2005) stated that, knowledge for constructivism cannot be transferred intact from the minds of one individual to another. Thus, learning and teaching cannot be identical, so it’s possible to teach in a good way without learners having learned. Jonassen, Peck and Wilson (1999, p. 6) stated that constructivist learning is the idea of learning as meaning making, and negotiation of meaning. According to them, in this knowledge creating society, mutual ideas are established and approved upon i.e. meaning is reflected in the social viewpoint/context which exists at any point in time by this society (Jonassen, Peck and Wilson, 1999).

The basic foundation of constructivist learning is that learners dynamically and actively participate in problem solving as well as in critical thinking. Here learners should feel that learning activity is important and appealing. They should construct their own knowledge by testing ideas and approaches based on their previous understanding's and experiences and apply it to new context. Also they should be able to incorporate the new understanding gained with pre existing academic/intellectual constructs (Kanselaar, 2002).

Karagiorgi and Symeou (2005) described constructivism as: “in the perspectives of constructivism, the center of instruction is the learner. Meaningful understanding occurs when learners develop effective ways to resolve problematic situations.” While learners develop their own views in solving problems, constructivism essentially promotes creative thinking which in turn encourages motivation, since learners get the possibility to face the desire and achievement innate in problem solving (Karagiorgi and Symeou, 2005).

Skaalid (1999) sated that knowledge is constructed by the learners, based on intellectual/mind activity in the view of constructivism theory and further she described that “Learners are considered to be active organisms seeking meaning. Constructions of meaning may initially bear little relationship to reality (as in the naive theories of children), but will become increasing more complex, differentiated and realistic as time goes on.”

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Sener (1997) described three basic principles inside constructivism. They are:

i. Situated/ anchored learning: which assumes that the majority of learning is context reliant. Here the learners result in richer and more meaningful learning experiences through activities like cognitive apprenticeships, project based learning, case based learning.

ii. Social negotiation of knowledge: a process through which learners form and test their constructs in a discussion with other learners and with the society.

iii. Collaboration: is a principal which focuses on learning activities so that cooperation and testing of knowledge can occur.

In addition Jonassen (1994) proposed eight characteristics of a constructivist learning environment: These are

• They offer numerous representations of reality.

• Multiple representations avoid simplification and represent the complexity of the real world.

• They give emphasis to knowledge creation instead of knowledge reproduction.

• They emphasize authentic tasks in a meaningful perspective rather than abstract instruction out of perspective.

• They provide learning environments such as real-world settings or case-based learning instead of predetermined sequences of instruction.

• They encourage thoughtful reflection on experience.

• They enable context and content dependent knowledge construction. • They support collaborative/joint creation of knowledge through

social negotiation, not competition among learners for recognition.

Kanselaar (2002) classified the concept of constructivism in two perspectives. First being the social constructivism and second is the cognitive constructivism. Even though both are a part of the constructivism, their view of constructivism is diverse.

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Social constructivism (socio-constructivist perspective), is a theory from Lev Vygotsk, which sees the teacher as an active role player in learning because the teacher is the one who assists the learner to develop their mental ability and capacity through discovery. In other words, social

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constructivism emphasizes on learning as a social and collaborative activity rather than knowledge being taught or the knowledge which is constructed and interpreted by the learner (Kanselaar, 2002).

On the other hand, cognitive constructivism is individualistic. Here the learner perceives learning as an accomplishment through a range of developmental phases that are constructed upon the previous stage. In other words, the learner builds up understanding through many motivation channels and is improved through integration, adaptation, organization and stability. The development of human intellect proceeds through adaptation and organization. Adaptation is a process of incorporation and accommodation, where, external events are incorporated into thought. New and unusual structures are accommodated into the mind which in turn produces adult mind (Kanselaar, 2002).

Relating to social and cognitive constructivism Cobb (1994) puts differences and concepts of see table below:-

Table 3: Social and Cognitive Constructivism (Cobb, 1994).

Socio-cultural Constructivist Cognitive Constructivist

Toughts are analysed In the individual-in-social -action. Conceptual processes located in the individual Learning is a process of: Socialisation through community of

practice Active cognitive.

The main aim is: Constitution of social and cultural processes by interpreting individuals

actively.

The social and cultural basis of personal experience

Theoretical attention is

on: have more importance over individual Social and cultural processes processes.

Individual processes.

Focus of analyses: Individual’s participation in culturally organized practices and face-to-face

interactions.

Building models of individual student's conceptual re-organization and by analyses of their joint constitution

of the local social situation of development. In looking at a classroom,

we see: Socialization in culturally organized practices of schooling. An evolving micro-culture in which students and teacher are a part. When looking at a group,

we stress on Homogeneity of members of established communities. Heterogeneity and avoid analyses single out pre-given social and cultural practices.

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2.3 Cognition

As the name implies the concept of, cognition or cognitive learning has rooted from psychology. Cognition can also be related to other fields like philosophy, linguistics, computer science, mathematics, neuroscience etc. Cognition in general is defined as the process of knowing. To be more specific it is the process of learning, thinking, being aware and judging. Gielen (2008) described or elaborated cognitive learning in a simple way i.e. “Cognitive learning is the result of listening, watching, touching or experiencing.” This description might seem rather vague and unclear if it is not studied into more deeply. In addition, Gielen (2008) continues: “Cognitive learning is defined as the acquisition of knowledge and skill by mental or cognitive processes – the procedures we have for manipulating information ‘in our heads’. Cognitive processes include creating mental representations of physical objects and events, and other forms of information processing.”

In education or pedagogy, the concept of cognitive learning implies that learner’s experience's and previous knowledge has a considerable impact on new knowledge, as that of constructivist theory. Cognitive learning indicates that, individual’s awareness, thinking, learning and own judgment gives the information a meaning, resulting them to acquire new knowledge. Moreover Gielen (2008) stresses that cognitive learning enables or helps us “to create and transmit a composite culture that includes symbols, values, beliefs and norms.” This can also be seen from a situated learning perspective emphasizing on the culture, or situated environment, where values have considerable influence on the learner.

According to these theories, learning is not seen as a one-way retrieval of information but it can be seen as forming information by applying previous experience. In other words, these theories support the observable fact that even though the same information was given to two different individuals the type of knowledge resulted is not identical as it is shaped based on individual’s understanding and awareness.

Cunia (2007) describes brief assumptions and principles which are related with cognitive learning. These include (1) the exclusiveness of learners learning processes which means that learners past experiences and knowledge cannot be similar to one another; (2) opposing to earlier beliefs (3) active engagement of learners during a process; (4) an individual’s learning is related to his/her own experiences, as a result of mental associations which are not basically indicated in explicit behavioural changes; (5) and that learning is a process of relating new information to

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previously learned information. Cunia (2007) further describes that people manage and organize their own learning and they obtain new information or knowledge easily and they can associate this new knowledge with the one they have already learned.

Grow (1996) presented a model (remembering information from a cognitive perspective) to illustrate the processing of cognitive learning. See the figure below

Figure 3: Learning and Remembering Meaningful Information – A Cognitive Model (Grow, 1996)

The above figure illustrates that, new knowledge comes out first in the form of new information, where this new information is refined and associated with the previous knowledge that the learner already had i.e. experiences that are stored in an individual’s memory. Then after, it will be sent to an elaboration phase to enhance the connection or relation among the newly formed information with that of the previous knowledge or experiences which resided in learner’s mind. After this, comes the elaboration phase where new knowledge is formed in to the learner’s knowledge toolbox resulting this knowledge to be meaning full as well as valuable.

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2.4 Synchronous versus Asynchronous e-learning

Communication in Second Life is different during various circumstances of collaboration, especially in the learning process between students-students and students-teachers.

Zhang, et al. (2004) defined e-learning as a procedure where teaching and learning is done online or virtually through network technologies. They also said that it is arguably one of the most powerful responses to the growing need for education. In addition Holmberg (2005) stated that it’s a mechanism of “delivering education to students who are not physically present”. Instead of being in class rooms, students are able to communicate with their teachers from various places using different online educational facilities like Second Life or other different web applications like Skype, Adobe connect etc. These online communications (virtual communication in our case) for educational purposes comes in two categories, synchronous and asynchronous which are described below. Both synchronous and asynchronous e-learning use internet as a platform for communication and interaction.

Synchronous e-learning - is a form of communication between teachers and students in real time by using devices like webcams, microphones etc. Examples of synchronous communications include video conferencing, chat, virtual reality etc (Hrastinski, 2008).

Students and teachers experience synchronous e-learning as more social and find it helpful (Hrastinski, 2008). In synchronous e-learning the major pedagogical assumption is that it motivates communication synchronously and keeps the participants active in the learning process (Leidner and Jarvenpaa, 1995). Hrastinski (2007) claims that this type of communication increases flow of information between students-student and student to teacher as well. Moreover it gives immediate feedback to students when compared to that of asynchronous e-learning.

But, Fåhraeus and Döös (2006) argue that communications like chat, virtual talking using avatars etc. are not as synchronous as that of face-to-face conversations or interaction because people engaged in face-to-face-to-face-to-face conversations can change their mind in the middle of the conversation after seeing the listener’s facial expressions which is lacking in most of e-learning applications (Fåhraeus and Döös, 2006 cited in Hrastinski, 2007). Asynchronous e-learning - is opposite to synchronous e-learning. Communication among students to students, as well as students to teachers

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occurs with some time difference. For example, students can download pre- recorded lecture materials, send messages or emails to their groups and teachers any time (Hrastinski, 2008).

In addition, this type of communication allows students to log on to the system at any time they want, and think about the tasks or comments they were given. Furthermore, students and teachers can reply in a time-flexible way and they will have more time to give appropriate reflections (Palloff and Pratt, 1999; Tuovinen, 2000).

Asynchronous e-learning, is normally facilitated by media like e-mail, forums, blogs, wikis, discussion boards. They help in supporting work relation among students and teachers, even though they are not present online at the same time (Hrastinski, 2008). Many people take online courses due to flexibilities like its asynchronous nature or they can combine their education with personal life like family, work and other commitments (Hrastinski, 2008).

2.5 Usage of Theory

In our research we have presented and used five different theories i.e. virtual world, Second Life, constructivism, cognition and asynchronous vs. synchronous e-learning. These theories can be related to technological, pedagogical, communication aspects. Also relating to our focus i.e. to examine students and teachers perceptions in learning in Second Life, these pedagogical theories in e-learning gave us good insights for investigating this study.

In the later part of this study, the empirical findings were analysed and discussed against these theories. The usage of these theories is explained below.

The theories virtual world and Second Life were used to see how various features of Second Life and virtual world were being used in the best manner to perceive learning. Also these theories helped us to describe the unique characteristics of these environments like recreating real environments, taking an avatar form etc which were later used in our analysis while discussing, how these unique features helped them in understanding more when compared to other traditional and e-learning methods.

The second one is constructivism theory which was used to support our analysis that, usage of constructive methods in teaching in Second Life can increase the understanding of the students.

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The third one is the cognition theory. It has been used in analysing our empirical findings to look, identify and get a clear picture of how the knowledge perceived in Second Life helped the students in enhancing their cognitive levels.

Finally, asynchronous vs. synchronous e-learning theory has been used in the analysis to understand how these different types of communication such as offline and online communication are effectively being used by students while communicating during collaboration activities. This theory has also been useful in our analysis to show that best usage of both types of communication can help the students and teachers to perceive more. In addition this theory has also helped in analysing features like lack of body language and its effects on students’ perceptions and understandings. Over all having used these theories for analyzing our study helped us to get descriptive knowledge that enabled a deeper understanding of the empirical findings as well as to get a concrete result from the study.

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3 Method

_____________________________________________________________

This section describes the chosen research method and the approach we used in this study. A detailed explanation of the worldview, strategy, research site, participants, data collection etc. have been explained.

____________________________________________________________

The research approach we have adopted for our study is qualitative research. As Creswell (2009) stated, this approach is suitable when there is a need for exploring and understanding the interpretations of individuals or certain groups given to a particular phenomena or a problem. Unlike quantitative research which aims to measure a quantity, the goal of qualitative research is to describe the qualities of a phenomenon under investigation. According to Seale (1999) “the simplest way in which qualitative social research can be defined is in terms of a negative: it is research that does not use numbers.” Qualitative method deals with the aim to investigate participants in their world and help the researchers to get a deep insight and understanding of the phenomena. In qualitative approach there is an assumption that, objects cannot be understood unless the investigator/researcher experiences the situation and observe it in the view of the participants under study (Creswell, 2009). In contrast to that, in quantitative approach, researchers investigate the entities from a distance and observe by not being a part of the study or respondents. Qualitative approach emphasises to get more closeness to the respondent (Holme and Solvang, 1991 cited in Günes, 2008). But being close to the respondents and making interpretations may sometimes lead to error in interpretation making because of not having understood the respondents perception which might lead to failure to answer the aim of phenomena (Holme and Solvang, 1991 cited in Günes, 2008).

Lofland (1971) described four kinds of methodological principles concerning to qualitative methods and research questions (Lofland, 1971 cited in Günes, 2008). These are

• Proximity to researched entities – States physical closeness is needed for contacting the individuals and groups in their setting, which creates social closeness and a foundation for mutual trust. Here in our case, we attended all the sessions in Second Life to get a sense of the environment and to get adapted to the setting. Teacher and students were observed while they were involved in

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academic activities to get a clear picture of educational settings in Second Life.

• Accurate rendering of occurrences – Here investigators should present accurate and pure comments about the events and incidents in a precise manner. In our case we have observed the situation in detail to be able to get brief/accurate information based on our goal.

• Descriptive clarifications – Detail explanation of the actions, activities and situation needs to be given in relation to what has been studied. While we were observing we have taken detailed notes to get thick descriptions of the phenomena and also these sessions were recorded to cross examine with field notes.

• Point-blank citations – In order to present a sufficient understanding, complete and point-blank verbal and written citations or quotations are required to demonstrate the individual’s own expressions. In our case the interview made with participants was recorded to be able to make citations and quotations by writing down a draft script of the conversation.

Here we choose this approach based on our research problem as well as considering the possible answers for our research question i.e. How do students and teachers perceive learning through avatar-based interaction in virtual world environments? As Creswell (2009) stated, when we try to answer how or what question, it is appropriate to use qualitative approach. Here in our study we tried to investigate how understanding can be affected when courses are offered in a world of avatar based interactions. Since we are mainly focusing on understanding our participants view about virtual worlds like Second Life for learning purposes, using qualitative method is appropriate. Moreover to be able to understand more about our participants by being close to them and making observations while they were engaged in different academic activities in Second Life gave us a deep insight about the phenomenon under study. As Creswell (2009) stated qualitative research helps to develop a holistic picture of the study or issue under study. Hence, we believe that using qualitative approach is appropriate and efficient for identifying and answering our research question as well as to get the deep insight of the phenomena under study in its actual context.

3.1 Philosophical World view

In our study we have adopted a social constructivist worldview throughout the research, because we have investigated, how learning is being perceived

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in a constructive way in 3D worlds. Creswell (2009) states social constructivist worldview handles how individuals or objects interact in particular context in their settings that helped in understanding of the participants well.

Here in our study we investigated and understood virtual learning in Linnaeus University (Kalmar) in its real-life settings, by emphasizing participants experiences, interpretations they had. This gave us a deep understanding and viewpoint of the influences of virtual environment on both teachers and students in the learning and teaching process while they are interacting, collaborating in this environment.

3.2 Research Strategy

The strategy of inquiry that we have used for our case is an interpretive case study. Klein and Myers (1999) described that interpretive research helps IS researchers to understand what people think and do in social and organizational contexts about a particular phenomena. This has the capacity to generate deep insight about the phenomena under investigation and they added that, understanding reality is obtained through social constructions such a language, consciousness, shared meanings, documents, tools, and other artefacts. Unlike that of post positivist, an interpretive research does not predefine dependent and independent variables, but focuses on the complexity of human sense making as the situation emerges (Kaplan and Maxwell, 1994). Here it tries to understand the phenomenon based on the meanings people give them (Boland 1985, 1991; Deetz, 1996; Orlikowski and Baroudi, 1991 cited in Klein and Myers, 1999).

Using interpretive research in our investigation helped us to understand the phenomena through the meanings that our participants gave in our context. Here in our study we believe that using interpretive case study is appropriate since we are concerned to understand, how students and teachers perceive learning through avatar based interactions in virtual world environments like Second Life and also, the factors that influence them in using Second Life for learning purposes in its actual context. Being able to observe the phenomenon helped us to interpret the meanings that our participants gave us.

Further Yin (1989) claims that case study is an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real life context using multiple sources of evidence. In our study, learning in virtual world of Second Life is a new phenomenon which can influence and be helpful to academic institutions, learners and researchers. To be able to get a broader

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picture of influences of learning in Second Life, we have observed our participants while they are engaged in Second Life and we have made interviews with them to get different views they had in relation with our research problem.

According to Yin (1984) there are three types of case study research i.e. exploratory, descriptive, and explanatory. Defining descriptive case study he says it is an attempt to describe what happen to a particular phenomenon when it is launched and factors/influences associated with it. In this sense we mostly made observations in Second Life and making a description of what we have observed for our report helped us to know our participants especially what they feel about Second Life or perceive by using this avatar based learning platform for learning purposes.

Yin (1984) stated two kinds of case studies, single case study and multiple case study. In our case our focus was on distinctive events of learning in virtual world of Second Life and Linnaeus University(Kalmar) being the only university in Sweden to offer such course we have used a single case study. Furthermore, it would make our research smooth as it was easier for us to contact them. Moreover using single case study helped us to explore in depth about this phenomenon. We justify our usage of single case study as Tellis (1997) says that a single case study can be acceptable if it meets the established objective. Also, Yin (1994) suggested that generalization of results from either single or multiple case studies are made into theory and not to populations.

3.3 Research Site and Participants

Linnaeus University (Kalmar) in collaboration with University of Central Missouri (USA) and University of Molde (Norway) is offering virtual teaching in courses like business talking using a platform called Second Life. Together, the three universities built their own virtual island in Second Life, called Kamimo, which they utilize as a virtual classroom (University of Molde, 2007). This course mainly emphasizes students to practice technical and administrative presentations in English and to take part in formal and informal discussions with feedback from the teacher (Linnaeus University, 2010). Kamimo project was mainly initiated with two goals. The first being to test and evaluate how the selected virtual environment i.e. Second Life is good as a learning platform and second to test some learning tools in virtual environment and to investigate if they are suitable for social interaction between people in academia, business life and students (Kamimo Islands, 2007). Kamimo project also has evaluation goals like

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identifying teaching and design elements used in Second Life and also to assess how these elements show impact on positive cognitive outcomes in Learning (Kamimo Islands, 2007).

Before the course starts students are given a link to the course site to get a complete view of instructions like the schedule, course structure, technical guidelines like how to download Second Life (SL), system requirements etc. A series of videos are posted about the basics of Second Life on how to move around (walk, fly, run etc), to speak, how to search for places, how to teleport, how to save landmarks etc. These videos are posted by the teacher of the course to give a clear and brief idea to the students about the virtual environment. For students with technical problems with Second Life, the university provides a facility where a test avatar can be used to check if their computer can actually function well with Second Life and also can help with the problems caused in creating an avatar.

The teacher also gives the students a link to a blog maintained by him. The blog mentions the daily activities done through the course and this helps the students to get a brief idea about the course structure and daily activities.

Kamimo Island has a welcome area, a classroom and places like a campfire, waterfall, sandbox, play area etc. Students are free to move around and explore the world by participating in activities like playing soccer, diving, creating objects in the sandbox etc. They are independent to take any avatar form. The course starts with a kickoff meeting at the welcome area one week prior to the actual date to make the students get adapted to the environment. During the kickoff meetings, students of Linnaeus University are paired up with the US students. The US students have to interview the Linnaeus university students for their course (in US) and also give their student partners a tour around Second Life to make them familiar to the environment. The main aim for assigning a US buddy is to acquaint them with an English speaking mentor (Petrakou, 2009).

Figure 4: Kickoff meeting held at the welcome area. 22

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Classes take place at a location Peer Gynt Rotunda which replicates a classroom with chairs, white board etc. but sometimes discussions are made in an informal setting around a campfire. Presentations can be given by teacher and students on the whiteboard. Students are required to send their files to the teacher prior to the presentation. The course is designed to have five sessions each of 2 hours. The first two are like practise sessions where students are given tips on how to present themselves and how to talk and participate in informal discussions. The actual task for these sessions was to make the students practise levels of formality, active listening, interrupting formally, to formulate questions and comments for others, tips for making presentations etc. The later three meetings are the sessions where tasks have to be performed by the students based on which they were graded. These meetings have general interactive lectures, group tasks, presentations, role-plays’ etc. Emphasis is given on how to talk in business environments and even minute points like pronunciation, grammar are considered here and students are given feedback.

Students can communicate either by chat which can be seen by other participants or by talking to other virtual avatars with a headset or note cards. A private message can also be sent to specific persons. All chat can be logged for future reference. Instant messages are also delivered online to the email if the participant is not online. During these interactive sessions teacher also gives suggestions to students. Due to time differences and more students enrolled in the course, same session is done three times so students have more options to attend the classes.

Figure 5: A lecture at Peer Gynt Rotunda in virtual setting and informal discussion around a camp fire.

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To help the students not to lose track of the course a podcast (i.e. series of audio recordings) is also posted on the course website after each class to give a brief overview of what happened in the last session.

Participants in this study were the teacher and students from this course. A total of 50 students were enrolled in this course. All the students were initially contacted through emails explaining the purpose and objective of our research. Depending on their response, we have interviewed 5 students along with one teacher of the course. Here convenience sampling i.e. a selection involving the most accessible subjects was used in selecting our participants, due to two reasons. First being the low response rate from the students who were willing to participate in our study and second is the less availability of time.

The participants were 3 females and 3 males of which 5 were students and 1 was teacher. The student participants came from different backgrounds like China, Sweden, Nigeria and Italy. Discussing there educational background most of the student participants were doing there Masters or Bachelors in computer science, business marketing, communication media etc. Since this was an online course, the students were accessing Second Life from different geographic locations like Sweden, China, Italy, Nigeria etc. Most of our student participants took up this course as they wanted to improve their English skills. All of them did not have any prior experience with Second Life and for most of them; this was the first online course they have taken.

The teacher of the course Mr. David Richardson is a teacher in Linnaeus University who has been working with virtual words for more than 6 years. He uses various ICT technologies like Skype, Adobe Connect, for educational purposes.

A brief explanation about the characteristics of participants like nationality, educations etc. were given so that the readers can have a clear picture about them. Technical aspects like expertise in computer usage, Internet accessibility, computer capacity, experience in e-learning were asked as they were helpful in formulating further questions in our semi structure interview. For example the usability of Second Life may vary depending on these technical factors as the person with good computer usage skills, faster Internet may find it easier than others. In some cases it was easier to ask our participants to compare other e-learning methods with Second Life if they had prior experience with other courses through distant education.

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Table 4: Characteristics of the Participants.

No Name of the Participan

t

Age Gender Nationality Geographic Location for accessing Second Life Educational Background Expertise in computer usage Internet Accessibilit y Computer capacity Experience in e-learning distance education 1 Anna-Sara

Johansson 23 F Swedish Vaxjo, Sweden Student of media and communication

Very Good Medium Medium No prior

experience 2 Fidelis

Aidelomon

26 M Nigerian Abuja,

Nigeria

IT student Very Good Average Fast No prior

experience

3 He Maoqi 30 M Chinese Shanghai,

China Masters degree in Computer embedded system

Very Good Good Fast No prior

experience

4 Ai Xu 23 F Chinese Vaxjo,

Sweden

Masters degree in marketing

Average Fast Fast No prior

experience 5 Valentina

Pigoli 24 F Italian Kalmar, Sweden Bachelor degree in Economics Good Medium Slow No experience prior 6 David

Richardson (Teacher)

M British Kalmar,

Sweden - Very Good Fast Fast More than 6 years of teaching

in Second Life

3.4 Data Collection

Observations and interviews were used as data collection procedures.

3.4.1 Observations

Observations in qualitative study, is very important with respect to the phenomenon under study. Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2007) describe that observations are a neglected aspect of research. But, in reality observations are very rewarding and add to the richness of the study.

Holme and Solvang (1991, cited in Günes, 2008) stated observations as “to observe, as a mundane, day-to-day operation in the field, is to orient one’s consciousness and one’s actions explicitly to look, to listen, and to ask ‘what’s happening.’ It is to ask one’s self: What is the order in, or ‘meaning of’, what’s happening? (Lofland, 1971)”. Holme and Solvang (1991, cited in Günes, 2008) stated that observations can come in two forms. An open form and a closed form. In open observations, the

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researched entities are informed or notified and they accept for being observed. Where as in closed observations the researcher does not get in direct contact with entities under study and they may not know that the research is taking place. In our study all the participants were informed about the research and our presence, and they also accepted for being observed.

Creswell (2009) identified four observation types which are complete participant, Observer as a participant (Participant observer), participant as observer and complete observer. In our study we played the role of participant observers. Maykut and Morehouse (1994) defines participant observation as a broad focus of inquiry and an ongoing process of observing and participating in the actual settings and it involves recordings what he/she sees and hears.

As participant observers, we sat during the classes and observed the teaching process and also how students were learning collaboratively. During our presence we saw the students were involved in listening to the teacher, participating in group discussions/role plays, giving presentations and teacher can be seen guiding the students academically and also helping them with technical problems. Other observations like how the teacher has to keep the group focused, how students appear/disappear suddenly due to technical problems, students behaviour in virtual life were be observed. All the five course sessions on Second Life were recorded using screen recording software called Camtasia Studio 7.0. These recordings were further used to observe the behaviour of the participants like how they are interacting with each other and how unable to gesture or use body language puts people in confusion while responding etc. The advantage of these recordings are they helped us to capture their movements more specifically and also helped us to notice things more carefully that we might have missed during observations due to improper attention.

But one weakness as participant observers is that sometimes it may be disturbing for the teacher/students for someone standing around and watching them. It can be distracting when observers are flying around which, is a feature supported in Second Life.

3.4.2 Semi Structured Interview

Interviews help us gather suitable as well as consistent data that are important to our research questions and goals (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2007). They can be categorized into (1) Structured interviews where questions are predefined and the interview is limited to them (2)

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Semi structured in rearview where a list of themes and questions are be covered (3) Unstructured interview where no prearranged list of questions are present apart from having the idea of what you want to know in specific context. In our study we used semi structured interviews. Holme and Solvang (1997, cited in Günes, 2008) stated “Semi-structured interviews will enable adaption to each respondent and interview setting, by allowing us to: change formulations of the questions, reorder them, and follow up with new questions if needed. A problem with a less structured approach is the increased difficulty of carrying out the analysis due to the complexity of the information gathered”.

These interviews were conducted face to face, through telephone, Skype or by meeting in Second Life (we spoke to them in virtual worlds through a microphone) about how do they find this gained knowledge in real world, are they able to perform same as in virtual worlds, about their experiences, any security or privacy issues they found, how teacher can evaluate students performance based on their virtual performance, how are they overcoming the disadvantage of lacking body language etc. Each Interview started with a statement ensuring confidentiality and lasted for 35 to 40 minutes. These were recorded and transcribed later. These interviews were one-on-one interviews where each participant was interviewed separately and the advantage was that it brings out the views and opinions easily (Creswell, 2009, p.181).

Some weaknesses which were taken care was not to ask leading questions, not to repeat the questions and not to judge the participants answers.

3.4.3 Websites

The course website and the blog maintained by the teacher were also helpful in gathering the data to some extent.

The website http://www.flexlearning.se/englishcourses/bt/index.htm helped us to get a brief view on the course. The data about the time schedules, the activities they were planning in each session, the procedures for assessments were mentioned here.

The teacher also maintains a blog (http://op2008research.blogspot.com/ ) which was a part of a research project in 2008. The blog mainly mentions the experiences, daily activities of the teacher. Even though it only mentions the activities done in 2008 it helped us to have a pre-image of the course as the same structure is being followed till date. Through this blog we came to know about the activities the teacher did to run this course

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smoothly, the problems he faced, the procedures and also about the other things related to the course happening in between the sessions.

3.5 Data Analysis and Validation

As discussed in the previous section qualitative study was conducted through observation and in depth interviews with participants in relation to our research problem.

The raw data we obtained from interviews and observations were analyzed by organizing and transcribing it. Then the data was read thoroughly and categorized into different categories, themes to find patterns. Regarding validity we have tried to use multiple strategies in our study to be able to ensure our internal validity of our findings and to produce a precise and acceptable result. We have used the following strategies throughout the study which were mentioned by Creswell (2009):- • Using multiple data sources like interviews with participants, observations and other sources like the blog maintained by the teacher, course website etc, made our study feasible. And also these multiple data sources helped us to compare and evaluate results which are crucial for validity.

• After transcription of all data we conducted some follow-up interviews to make sure that whether the transcription is similar with what the participants have said.

• Member checking strategy has been used i.e. after we have finished the findings we have send to some of the participants to check the accuracy of our findings.

This study took twenty weeks in order to complete the following tasks: (1) Conduct a literature review and complete the introduction.

(2) Develop questions for interviews that are connected to the research questions

(3) Adjust and conduct interviews with the participants to collect data for the study.

(4) Interpret the results and compose them in the research article. (5) Finalize the conclusion section of the study and review the

thesis.

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3.6 Researchers Role

As described earlier we conducted qualitative study focusing mainly in-depth interviews and observation of participants through Second Life in its actual setting. We as researchers mostly interpreted and analyzed the data that we have gathered through interviews, observation (observer participant in virtual learning) and through field. Moreover, being able to participate as a participant observer helped us to get a deep understanding of the phenomenon under investigation (Creswell, 2009).

3.7 Ethical Issues

All the participants have been given brief information about the research purpose and objectives. Necessary credentials were shown to the participants to be transparent. As we have discussed earlier a voice recorder was used and interviewees were asked whether they were convenient in using it. After transcription of the interview, report of the transcription has been sent back to them to avoid discrepancy i.e. to ensure that whether the transcription is similar with what they have stated and also all information related to them was kept confidential, if asked for. All the participants were informed that these interviews are flexible and they could withdraw from them anytime.

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4 Empirical Findings

_____________________________________________________________ This section contains the observations made in Second Life and also the data collected through interviews from students and teacher.

Here the empirical findings were discussed based on observations and interviews. The teacher and students of Kamimo Island, Second Life were observed and to support our observations we made interviews with our participants.

4.1 Observations

Five sessions of the course were observed and Table 5 explains more details about each session. The details include the location of the session in Second Life, the activities they did and the timings of each session.

Observations were made based on the characteristics of the students and teacher which was derived from the theoretical framework i.e. the four themes (Second Life theme, Constructivism theme, Cognition theme and Asynchronous vs Synchronous theme).

The first column of Table 6 is the characteristics against which we analyzed students’ perception in learning process. For each characteristic observed we have rated our level of observation as 'well observed' or 'somehow'. For instance if a particular characteristic was observed appropriately and we got good insights, it was labelled as 'well observed'. But for the characteristics which were observed and needed to be explained more or confirmed in interviews we have labelled it as 'somehow'. In addition we have discussed about the devices used and overall comments about the events observed which would help our readers to get understanding of how the observation was done by the researchers. Similarly the protocol for the teacher was also done as shown in Table 7.

Using Virtual World in Education: The case of Second Life .

Master’s Thesis in Informatics